MOSCOW, November 15. /TASS/. Washington’s decision to acclocate $4.6 bln to contain Moscow is a spoke of anti-Russian hysteria, Chairman of the Russian State Duma (lower house of parliament) Committee for Foreign Affairs Leonid Slutsky said addressing a Duma meeting on Wednesday.
"This is a strong spike of anti-Russian hysteria," he said. "Huge amounts of money are being allocated to contain Russia’s alleged expansion towards the European space. Russia is being declared the most dangerous country first in the information field, and then in the sphere of politics," Slutsky added.
The senior Russian lawmaker pointed out that "the US House of Representatives has passed the 2018 defense policy bill, which particularly includes a provision concerning steps to contain Russia’s activities in Europe." "Around 4.6 billion dollars will be allocated for that purpose, which is a tremendous amount of money never seen before. And it is no accident that this decision came right after British Prime Minister Theresa May accused Russia of threatening the international order, while some other leaders of the European leaders claim that Russia allegedly seeks to rebuild the European architecture," Slutsky noted.
He also said that at the same time, the US Congress planned to allocate $350 mln to the Pentagon in 2018 to provide military assistance to Ukraine, particularly by supplying defense weapons and anti-tank systems. Meanwhile, at the US initiative, the Third Committee of the United Nations General Assembly has adopted a resolution condemning alleged human rights violations in Crimea and Russia’s establishment of laws on the peninsula. "As you see, enormous financial and information resources are used against us. As a result, we have been making increasing use of the parliamentary democracy’s capacities to counter these twisted attempts to distort Russia’s image on the international stage. I am confident that these attempts will not succeed," the senior Russian lawmaker concluded.